Post-Bang Resurrection
by brukleflesche
Summary: Divine intervention places Spike Spiegel in modern-day Tokyo with Usagi Tsukino as his next-door neighbor in their apartment complex. What sort of relationship will they have?


**POST-BANG RESURRECTION**

©2002 by Kei

          Spike's eyes shot open at an ear-piercing noise and he automatically bolted upright, causing tremendous flares of pain to nearly blind him. He studied his surroundings, finding himself in a modest one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a living room and kitchen area. The furniture was plain and the white walls gazed back at him simple and undecorated.

          Then the noise that had woken him sounded again impatiently and he realized it was the door buzzer. When he said, "Coming!" his voice broke under the agony coursing throughout his aching body. With a grunt of effort he hauled himself up from his reclining position on the sofa and trudged to the door. After undoing the lock he opened the door to be greeted by a petite, smiling blonde woman holding some envelopes in her slender hand. When she caught sight of him and his wounds her sky-blue eyes became huge and she gasped so sharply that she began coughing.

          "Oh-oh my god, Mr. Spiegel!" she shrieked, the envelopes slipping out of her fingers. Following a frantic assessment of his injuries, she dashed through the door about three yards down from his and returned in a few moments carrying with her a small red bag containing what Spike suspected were medical supplies of some kind.

          "C-Come on!" she sputtered, taking his hand gently in hers and guiding him back into his apartment, kicking the door shut behind them. She led him over to the open space of carpet by the sofa and helped him lay down. Then she rummaged through the bag until she came up with a sharp pair of fabric scissors that glinted in the sunlight filtering through the blinds parted over Spike's window. She deftly cut apart his torn-up outerwear and threw the shreds carelessly to the side. Then she set about extracting slivers of ripped cotton material from the deep lacerations and bullet holes in Spike's flesh. She did it very carefully and gently, tossing on a pair of reading glasses and using tweezers.

          "Who-Who are you?" Spike inquired, surprised at his wheezing voice.

          "You shouldn't really be talking right now, Mr. Spiegel. You need to conserve your energy," she advised, using alcohol-infused gauze to clean away dried blood from the unbroken skin around his wounds. Then, apologizing profusely as she did so, the strange girl dabbed hydrogen peroxide over the less serious lesions. Her patient didn't make a sound.

          "I'm Usagi Tsukino," she said after completing that task. "Your next-door neighbor." She then took a tube of antibacterial ointment and dabbed some on the smaller gashes and nicks Spike had. Finally she covered them with strips of gauze secured by lengths of medical tape.

          "I came by because some of your mail was accidentally delivered to me," she explained. "And it's a good thing I did, too! It was a stroke of luck on your part that I got some letters meant for you." Usagi thought about her statement for several seconds and then said, "Well, you're not really lucky, being hurt like this and all, but you know what I mean!" Slightly flustered, she instructed Spike to stand up, which she helped him to do, and then she took out a fat roll of thick white bandage from her red satchel. She tightly bound the huge slash across his abdomen and also the one or two bullet wounds in his arm and leg.

          "Stay right here," she directed firmly, carefully lowering him into a nearby chair. She darted down the short hallway, found his bedroom, and dove into his closet to retrieve some clean clothes. She returned with some blue slacks and a button-down yellow dress shirt. She aided Spike getting into the clothes and then told him to lean on her as they walked down the corridor of the fifth floor, which they lived on. They descended the stairs at the end, hurried through the lobby so as not to attract attention, and Usagi plopped Spike down into the passenger seat of her silver Honda Integra that was sitting in the parking lot adjacent to the apartment complex. Then she rushed around to the driver's side, hopped in, buckled Spike and herself up, and revved the engine.

          "One of my best friends is a doctor at the hospital I'm taking you to," Usagi said conversationally as she drove like a madwoman down the busy street, weaving in and out of pileups and running as many stop signs as she could. Fortunately they were not stopped by any policemen and arrived at the hospital in record time.

          With Spike once again leaning his tall, lanky form on the noticeably smaller Usagi, the two entered the first floor of the hospital and Usagi ordered the nurse to call Dr. Mizuno and say that Usagi had an emergency. Spike watched from a stiff-backed chair as Usagi demanded to see Dr. Mizuno, the nurse finally complied, and a woman with short, shaggy blue hair wearing an immaculate white doctor's coat came jogging down the hallway. She met with Usagi, whose mouth moved a hundred miles a minute as she clarified on why she had summoned the doctor so suddenly and vehemently. Usagi pointed at Spike, who lifted his hand in weak greeting, and Dr. Mizuno ran over to him. After glancing over him once, she had some orderlies and nurses called. A group of them arrived with a gurney, which they carefully but speedily hefted Spike onto, and then they rolled him to the emergency room. Usagi, who had given her identity as Spike's sister (without any qualms from Dr. Mizuno), could only sit, wait, and worry.

          The first thought to rise to the surface of Spike's mind was the fact that Julia was lost to him forever. She had been gunned down before his eyes as they had been proverbially going down the path to a life of freedom and happiness together. Spike had lived the short remainder of his life recklessly, yearning only to survive until he had killed Vicious. His goal had been accomplished, and he had thought himself dead, yet for reasons far beyond his comprehension, some cruel god had chosen to resurrect him and force him to have a completely new existence here in this world.

          Julia had been his life, and now she was dead. Yet Spike still breathed. Where was the fairness in that? He had wanted death, wanted to end the dreamlike state he'd been living/slowly dying in for the past 3 years since Julia fled from the choice Vicious demanded that she make.

          'God, I hope you're laughing your ass off at my misfortune right now,' he mentally addressed the divine being. 'I've got nothing to live for, so why the hell am I alive?'

          He jerked his head to the side when someone's loud snoring blared out in the gentle silence cradling the hospital room. He saw Usagi passed out in a cream-colored armchair, her head lolling to the side and her mouth open as she inhaled and exhaled like a freight train.

          '_Her?_ You want me to live for _her?_ …' Eventually Spike resolved to give this overrated living bit one more shot. And if it didn't work out, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to procure a gun from somewhere and blow his brains out.

Spike lightly touched his fingers to his bandaged midsection. Usagi's amateur fix-up had been replaced by professional medical attention, but she had been his initial saviour. He pondered for a while on how to repay her, and could only think to take her out to dinner. Girls liked that, right?

          Smacking her lips together and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Usagi slowly straightened from her lounging position and looked at her next-door neighbor.

          "Mr. Spiegel!" she exclaimed, jumping up from the chair and darting over to his bedside. "I'm so glad to see you awake! How are you feeling? Are you in any pain? Is there anything I can do for you?"

          Spike shook his head. "I'm fine, Usagi, thanks. Hey, since you took care of me, it's the least I can do to take you out to dinner, right?"

          Usagi blinked blankly at him. Then her animation returned and she smiled widely. "That sounds great! I absolutely love to eat!" she announced without reserve. "Of course, we can't do it until you're totally healed. Ami—that's Dr. Mizuno to you—says that you can be out of here by the end of the week, probably. Then you can live pretty normally, you just have to take extra care not to overexert yourself. Since I'm conveniently right next door, you have to promise to call me if you need _anything_, alright?"

          "Okay, okay, I promise," Spike surrendered, rather taken aback by her constant outpouring of words and the eagerness that seemed ready to leap out from under her skin at any moment. He actually found he liked her clear exhibition of her emotions; she didn't play games with people to make them guess how she was feeling. Spike wouldn't have to infer things with Usagi, just her eyes would tell him what he needed to know.

          So the week continued on, Usagi coming to visit Spike for several hours every day. She drove him back to their apartment complex the day he was discharged, and he was surprised to find his apartment cleaned from top to bottom, not to mention the scrumptious dinner presented on a folding table in the middle of the living room.

          "I thought this would be a nice welcome home treat, and it takes care of us having dinner together," Usagi told him with a sparkling smile.

          "Two birds with one stone," Spike concurred, returning the smile, though his was of considerably less magnitude. He pulled out Usagi's chair for her and sat down across from her before digging into the food laid out for pleasurable gustatory consumption.

          After they had both eaten their fill (which was everything down to the very last crumb), Usagi cleared the table and washed the dishes while Spike put away the table and chairs they had utilized for the meal. They sat down on the couch in silence for a while until Spike requested, "So tell me about yourself, Usagi."

          He detected a faint blush on Usagi's cheeks at his pronouncement, but she cleared her throat and began to speak. She had been running amok in Tokyo for 24 years, though four of those years had been usefully spent in a college from which she had recently graduated with a degree in education. Her desire was to teach Year 1 students; she claimed to love children, followed by the admission that she was still something of a child herself. Spike teasingly agreed.

          "And what about you, Mr. Spiegel?" Usagi inquired, gazing at him with expectant sapphire eyes.

          Spike dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. "Ah, you don't wanna hear about my life, Usagi, it's boring. Trust me, you'd be asleep in a minute."

          "I wouldn't!" she insisted. "Please tell me, Spike," she added in a quiet, earnest voice, and she won him over by her abandonment of the formal address of 'Mr. Spiegel' she usually called him with.

          "Well, right now I'm in between jobs," he began. "But my last job dealt with lawbreakers. I traveled on a ship with three companions and a dog, and we tracked down criminals and turned them into the police." 'For a tidy sum,' he added mentally. It was the basic truth, the facts stripped down to the bone; Spike knew Usagi would never believe him if he expounded on every detail of his life.

          "Oh, wow!" Usagi gushed. "So you guys were like good Samaritans! To do such a thing without considering being rewarded or recognized! I'm in awe, Spike, really."

          "It wasn't a big deal…" he started to say, but let his words trail off, not wanting to deter Usagi from her idolization of him.

          "Do you miss your friends?" she questioned.

          "I don't know," he replied. "I was ready to leave them at any time."

          Usagi sat silently for a bit, contemplating all that she knew of Spike. She remembered a question that had been nagging at the back of her mind for a while, and she finally put it into words.

          "Spike, how did you get hurt? What were you doing that got you those wounds?" she demanded. "You were fighting someone, obviously. Someone like you wouldn't be an innocent victim or passerby. Were you street-fighting?"

          Spike reared back from her forceful outburst, surprised at the apparent anger a person of such small stature could summon. But behind the veneer of rage he saw twinges of fear and worry, and the flame of hope flickering within her.

          "I, uh, did engage in a bout of fisticuffs with a rather unfriendly fellow," he admitted with a joking magniloquence, but no hint of laughter bubbled up in Usagi. "But it's not a regular thing with me, not anymore," he threw in, hoping that this would provide succor for the emotions roiling inside Usagi.

          "Good," she said sternly. "Because I _abhor_ violence." Then, in a softer, more vulnerable voice: "My fiancée died in a street fight."

          However, before Spike could pry into background of the heartrending sentiment, Usagi lifted her eyes and pierced his deeply. Her pupils flicked back and forth from one of his eyes to the other, studying them closely.

          "Your eyes…" she murmured, unconsciously lifting up her hand and extending her fingers out toward the mismatching orbs. Spike grasped the reaching digits and gently pushed them back towards their owner, indicating that Usagi had invaded his personal space.

          "The left eye sees the past…" he said, voice barely audible. As Usagi examined the darker hue of his left eye, Spike briefly wondered if she could see the past reflected in the liquid brown.

          With a smile of genuine sympathy (or was it empathy?) Usagi patted Spike briefly on the shoulder.

          "You don't have to say anything else, Spike," she told him. "I know how painful the past can be, and just how inescapable it is."

          "Do you?" Spike asked, not achieving the flippant suspicion in his voice that he wanted.

          "Yes," she answered gravely, and just by that one word he knew it was true. Then her sober expression shifted and brightened as she met his eyes once more, smiling cheerfully. "But it's okay, because the past has passed, and we have each other now in the present. We'll see each other through on our new futures, Spike, okay?"

          "Okay," he agreed.

          Spike, unsure of how to put himself to good use in the organized working community, settled for doing odd jobs for neighbors until a job opportunity offering stability and longevity came up.

          As for Usagi, she worked part-time at the local library, four hours a day, five days a week. Spike, lacking anything better to do, escorted her to and from work every day, since it was within walking distance and Usagi liked to conserve gas to save money. They both enjoyed one another's company, learning each other's idiosyncrasies and sharing opinions on their strolls together. And sometimes they simply walked along in silence, a comfortable, companionable wordlessness.

          One day Spike was bumming around on the cement steps leading up to the library, waiting for Usagi's shift to be over. He turned at the familiar creak of the door hinges that signaled Usagi's exit from the building. He was surprised to see her come bounding down the steps, laughing loudly and delightedly about something.

          "Spike!" she cried gleefully, pouncing on him and practically squeezing the air out of him with the tight, merciless embrace she had wrought upon him in her oblivious joy.

          "Guess what! I have an interview tomorrow for a job!" she said at last, releasing him and bouncing up and down, her adrenaline rush going into overdrive.

          "That's great, Usagi," he congratulated her. "How are we going to celebrate?"

          "Well, we shouldn't celebrate until I know whether or not I've got the position," she pointed out, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

          "The truth hurts," she ribbed him, patting him on the arm. "Now come on, let's go home. I have to decide what to wear!"

          The next morning Usagi and Spike broke fast together before her interview at an elementary school about 30 miles from the apartments. Spike couldn't help noticing how pretty Usagi looked in her demure lavender skirt and prim white blouse. Instead of her usual "odango" hairdo, today she had opted for a more mature style, plaiting her long blond tresses back into one long braid. Spike knew she would win over the interviewer and become a Year 1 teacher like she wanted; he knew she would do an excellent job. Kids would love her sweet personality and gentle mannerisms.

          Spike walked Usagi down to her car, wished her good luck, and waited until her car had rounded a corner before turning around to return inside. When he reached the door, however, he saw an unfamiliar, shady young woman clad in black leather leaning against the wall near the entrance. He eyed her warily as he made his way toward the door, and was going to ignore her, except that she spoke up in a voice scratchy from cigarettes.

          "You know Usa."

          The phrase itself would generally have been a question, a conversation starter even, but the way this chit said it made it an accusation, as though knowing Usagi were a crime. The emphasis put on the nickname "Usa" was not by any means affectionate, but venomous enunciation. If this girl were to introduce herself as an old friend of Usagi's she would be lying through her teeth.

          "Yeah. So?" Spike returned, quirking an eyebrow and looking at the girl impassively, giving away nothing of the worry for Usagi's well-being that was churning inside him.

          "You're her friend."

          "Uh-huh," Spike said skeptically.

          "Don't interfere," she ordered, pushing fluidly away from the wall and turning to leave. Spike's hand immediately shot out and gripped her roughly by the shoulder, spinning her around so she faced him again. His eyes were narrowed and his expression deadly.

          "Interfere with _what?"_

          "It's none of your business!" she yelped defiantly. The rage apparent on Spike's countenance thickened as his grasp tightened until the girl squeaked in pain.

          "Interfere with what?" Spike repeated in a low, no-nonsense tone.

          "I don't have nothin' to do with it!" the girl wailed, at last losing the affectation of sangfroid. "I'm just here on reconnaissance, honest! Some members of a rival gang are lookin' ta mess up Usa, and they paid me ta scout out her place!"

          Spike growled deep in his throat, earning a frightened peep from his captive. He stabbed her again with his intense gaze and snarled, "Tell your employers that they'll have to go through me if they want Usagi."

          She nodded frantically, her kohl-lined eyes wide with fear.

          "Get outta my sight," he barked, shoving her away. She stumbled, caught her balance, and dashed off to deliver the message. Spike assumed the position she had previously held, lounging against the wall. He patiently awaited the arrival of these rival gang members, wondering just what Usagi had been involved in prior to her acquaintance with Spike. She mentioned her fiancée being killed in a street-fight; could the two things possibly be related? Spike began to infer things about Usagi's labyrinthine past and eventually pieced together a plausible situation.

          Usagi somehow got mixed up in a street gang of some sort and met a boy (most likely older than her) in it. The two fell in love and decided to get married when Usagi graduated from high school. They probably would have had to elope because it was doubtful that Usagi's parents approved of the relationship, if they knew about it at all. However, before the lovers could follow through on their plans, Usagi's gang engaged in an epic battle with a group of rivals and her beloved was killed. Usagi took a year or two off to grieve for her loss and pick up the shards of her life, and then attended college with intent to become a teacher. She got her own place, went to school, graduated, and began looking for a job, which was where Spike entered the picture.

          'So she lost her reason for living, too,' Spike mused. 'But she found a new purpose…'

          "Hey buddy, you the one that gave Beryl that bruise on her shoulder?" a gruff voice inquired.

          "Who wants to know?" Spike replied, opening his eyes, which he had closed in concentration as he tried to envision Usagi's past. He raised his eyelids just in time to see a fist coming right at him. He quickly dodged and the fist slammed into the wall, its owner cursing in pain.

          Spike scanned the area, seeing that five big guys had descended upon him, all equipped with brass knuckles, chains, and knives. He smirked to himself and jumped out of the way as a chain flew out to crack his skull open. He blocked a punch with his arm while at the same time kicking one assailant and directing a blow at another. A knife slashed at his stomach, but Spike was too quick. He easily disarmed the attacker and rendered him unconscious by throwing him headfirst into the wall.

          Suddenly a guy snared Spike by his arms, holding him still and leaving Spike's entire front vulnerable for the remaining three gang members to strike. When one advanced, Spike used the man behind him as support and delivered a crippling kick to the stomach of the goon descending on him. When he bent over to clutch his stomach, Spike thrust his foot out and the sole of his shoe connected hard with the thug's skull, knocking him out.

          Not a moment later, Spike had hooked his left leg around the same limb of the gangster behind and thrown the guy over his head, satisfied with the loud thump his body made when it hit the sidewalk. The man didn't make any attempts to get up, but his fellow gangsters were still bombarding Spike with fists and weapons that never contacted their victim.

          They started coming at him from opposite directions, one behind Spike and the other in front, but Spike didn't look the least bit worried. The ruffian in front tried to cut Spike's face with a pocketknife, and Spike stepped back to avoid him and at the same time forcefully jabbed his bent elbow into the other one's nose multiple times, causing it to explode with blood as its owner toppled to the cement, out cold. Spike returned his attention to the last attacker and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to his head, struck him hard in the gut, then flipped him over on top of his partner.

          "You-You bastard!" Spike heard a deep voice curse, and he spun around to see the big guy who'd been holding him pointing a handgun at Spike's head. He was sweating and shaking, but he had the red face of an enraged man beyond reasoning. For a moment Spike thought he would be shot dead, but the man abruptly dropped the gun when his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell face-first to the ground. Spike watched him for a moment and glanced back up to see who had taken down the lout, probably with a strong, swift chop delivered to the back of his neck.

          "Usagi?" Spike said, meeting her blazing blue eyes. He could only stand there silently as she surveyed the scene littered with bodies and blood.

          Finally her intense gaze returned to him and she said in a barely-audible voice, "I got the job."

          Spike wanted to congratulate her, but got the feeling she was no longer in the mood for celebration.

          "I've also secured an apartment closer to the school so that I won't have to make such a long commute every day," she told him solemnly.

          For a moment there was only a tense, awkward silence between them, until Spike said, "Usagi, look, they were—"

          "I don't give a damn who they are or why they're here!" she burst out, highly incensed. "I _told_ you I abhor violence, Spike! And then you go off and do something like this! I haven't cared about someone the way I care about you since Mamoru died in a gang rumble! When he died, _I DIED!_ I had just resurrected myself before I met you, and now you do this! How could risk yourself like that and force me to go through hell again? If you don't care about your own life, you obviously don't care about my feelings at all!"

          By this time she had started crying, and Spike wanted to defend himself to her uninformed accusations, but before he could reply Usagi stormed inside. Spike stood for several long moments in front of the doorway before he turned and walked off. He went all around town, just walking and thinking, thinking about the revelation of how alike he and Usagi were. They had both lost their beloveds and "died" as a direct result of that. The one or two blank years in Usagi's past and the time she spent in college probably accounted for a hazy, dreamlike state just like the one Spike had floated through. And Usagi had resurrected herself, as she said, around the same time Spike had also been revivified.

He didn't return home until after dawn. He dragged himself up to his apartment, stripped down to his underwear as he trudged to the bedroom, and collapsed onto his bed.

          The next time Spike opened his eyes, he looked at the digital clock beside his bed and found that it was seven in the evening of the same day. He trundled to the refrigerator and drank some milk directly from the carton before collecting his clothes and pulling them on. He ran his long, thin fingers through his mop of hair and proceeded to Usagi's apartment to explain himself to her and also let her know that he, for lack of a better phrase, understood her pain. Inhaling a deep, meditative breath, Spike lifted his hand and rapped on the door. When there was no answer he tried again, with the same result.

          Arching an eyebrow in suspicion, Spike extended his hand and turned the doorknob to find the door unlocked. He slowly pushed inward and peered inside. He was shocked to find absolutely nothing in the space. There was no furniture, no household amenities, no food, no nothing. He ventured into the other rooms and discovered more of the same nothingness, just immaculate white walls and vacuumed carpets.

          Upon returning to the living room, Spike was surprised to see Usagi standing with her back to him, apparently searching for anything she might have left behind. Spike swallowed and cleared his throat to get her attention. She whirled around and her eyes widened momentarily when she caught sight of him.

          "I saw the door ajar, so I was wondering if there was someone in here. I came back to check and make sure I haven't left anything," she said.

          "I don't think you have," Spike replied. It was silent for a second, and his original intentions dissolved. He said simply, "Sorry."

          Her expression was unreadable as she answered, "I know you are, Spike. But I can't accept your apology." She fished her keys out of her pocket and motioned for him to exit so she could lock the apartment up. She turned off all the lights and shut the door, and while she turned the key in the lock Spike stood mutely beside her. At last she straightened and spoke. "Goodbye."

          She spun on her heel and started walking away. A few yards off she stopped and turned back around to face Spike. He watched wordlessly as Usagi lifted her arm and pointed her index finger at him with her thumb straight up, forming a gun with her hand. Smiling bitterly, she said, "Bang. You got me, Spike. Right in the heart."

          Then she continued on her way to the stairs and didn't look back even once. Spike went back inside his apartment.

          Six weeks later, by pure happenstance, Usagi ran into Spike at the library where she used to work. She was searching for a book containing helpful hints for managing a Year 1 classroom and Spike was repairing a broken light fixture. He worked as a handyman for many local businesses and other establishments. He figured that, compared to making repairs on his Swordfish II, this kind of stuff was cake.

          Spike was just climbing down the metal ladder he had set up below the fluorescent light when he felt eyes upon him. He looked around and noticed two blue orbs trained on him through the open spaces on a shelf left by two checked-out books. Those sapphire eyes were too familiar for Spike not to utter her name.

          "Usagi…?"

          When she slowly peeked around the corner of the bookshelf and finally showed herself, Spike could see two pink roses flowering on her cheeks. He didn't blame her for being embarrassed at having been discovered; hell, he felt embarrassed for her. After all, she was the one who had made the melodramatic exit and now it appeared as though she were spying on him, though Spike knew that wasn't the case. This meeting was simply chance. A sign that they should reconcile, maybe?

          "Um, hi," Usagi mumbled. "How are you?"

          Spike felt the awkwardness of the encounter clinging to him like a second skin. "I'm fine," he said. "Got some work, so that's good. Speaking of which, how's your job? Do you like it?"

          "Oh, yes, I love it! The kids are all so adorable and inquisitive!" she gushed, and then she remembered to keep her emotions in check. "I'm really enjoying it," she murmured in closing on the topic.

          "Well, that's great, glad to hear things are going well for you," he told her with a reserved smile. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" He folded the ladder and leaned it against a nearby wall for the janitor to put away later, then he hefted up his toolbox and made his way to the exit.

          "Spike, I—"

          At Usagi's voice he hesitated and turned only his head back to look at her looking at him. The expression on her face was wavering between contrite and stubborn.

          "What?" he prompted.

          "I, uh, I guess I'll see you around," she finished lamely.

          "Yeah. See ya." With a cursory wave of his free hand, he pushed open the door, descended the cement steps, and disappeared from view. Usagi frowned, thoroughly disappointed in herself, and went to check out her book.

          About 18 days after that uncomfortable meeting, Usagi was in a convenience store purchasing bags of varied candies as snack rewards for her students and also a carton of cigarettes for her next-door neighbor who was no longer ambulatory and had requested of Usagi to buy some menthol cigarettes for her.

          "Will that be all for you today, ma'am?" an all-too-familiar voice inquired. Usagi raised her line of vision and found herself staring into the depths of one dark brown eye and one light brown eye.

          "Yes, Spike, thanks," she replied, fumbling around with her wallet as she awaited the price.

          Spike chuckled. "Just keep running into each other, don't we, Usagi? That'll be five thousand yen."

          "Strange flukes, aren't they?" Usagi replied conversationally, handing him the money and picking up her items. "How long have you been working here?"

          "Since about two weeks ago, I guess. It's just part-time," he answered. "Since when did you start smoking? Not a very healthy habit to take up. I should know."

          "Oh, I don't. My current next-door neighbor is an elderly woman in a wheelchair, and she's a chain smoker, so she asked me to pick up some cigarettes for her while I was out," Usagi clarified, and Spike nodded his understanding.

          "Well," he said, "have a good day, Usagi."

          "Thank you. You, too," she responded, walking out of the store.

          After she had gone, Spike pondered on her usage of the word 'fluke.' "A fluke is an accidental stroke of good luck," he muttered to himself. "Maybe she's coming around…"

          The next Monday after school, Usagi was waiting with her final remaining student, Seiji Umino, for his mother to come pick him up. Finally a small black sedan pulled into the parking lot and a medium-sized woman with wavy red hair stepped out. Seiji squealed and ran to his mother, who hugged him and helped him get situated in the car, and then looked at Usagi.

           "Usa?" she asked, walking over to the blonde.

          "Oh my god, _Naru?"_ Usagi shrieked, and the two hugged. When at last they parted, Usagi smiled widely and asked, "So, you married Gurio? How wonderful!"

          Naru blushed at the mention of her husband's name. They all knew each other from their old Ohkami* gang days, but Usagi had broken off all ties with them after Mamoru's funeral. Naru and Gurio had been dating even back then.

          "Yes, we love each other very much," Naru admitted. "And we simply adore Seiji to death. We're hoping for another child soon, actually."

          "Well good luck!" Usagi cheered.

          "How about you, Usagi?" Naru said. "I hear you've got a—if you'll pardon my language—kick-ass boyfriend."

          Usagi stared at her in confusion. "Boyfriend? No, I haven't… not since Mamoru…"

          "Really? Because I heard from Unazuki that some guy defended you against five guys from the Ryuu** gang who were looking to mess with you," Naru informed her, and Usagi gasped. She encouraged Naru to give her the full details, and her old friend complied. According to Unazuki, a girl named Beryl from the Ryuu gang, the rival gang of the Ohkami, had been keeping tabs on Usagi and this mystery man discovered her, frightened her a bit, and told her to send in the clowns who wanted to harm Usagi. It had been five against one, but this man had taken down all of them.

          "Oh, crap, I could kick myself…" Usagi murmured in realization. "Naru, thank you so much! It was great seeing you again, and give my best to Gurio! I have to go!" And with that, she dashed off to her car, leaving a very bewildered Naru behind.

          "Stupid Usagi, I should have let him explain!" Usagi berated herself as she sped to her old apartment complex. She skidded to a stop across several handicap spaces in front of the building, put the car in park, and rushed inside. She thudded up the five flights of stairs and pounded on Spike's door when she came to a halt there.

          Spike, bleary-eyed and shirtless, opened the door. "Huh? Usagi? What are you—," he tried to ask, but the question withered in his throat when Usagi flung her arms around him, almost crying.

          "I'm so sorry, Spike!" she wailed. "I didn't give you a chance to explain, and I should have! If you never forgive me, I'll understand! I'm such a fool, Spike, I'm so sorry! I've wanted so badly to talk to you and see you every day, you don't even know!"

          "It's, uh, okay, Usagi… it's okay," Spike told her haltingly as his hands floundered for a place to rest. Soothing distraught young women wasn't his forte. 

Usagi hiccupped and pulled away for a moment to look at him with red eyes and tearstained cheeks. "Really?" she squeaked.

          He nodded. "Really."

          She hugged him tightly again, and he loosely returned the embrace. Usagi whispered something in a voice so low he nearly missed the words. And when the phrase registered in his mind he thought maybe it wouldn't be so tough to live for her. He hugged her a bit closer.

          "Thanks, Usagi."

**—finis—**

Well, after visiting several excellent Cowboy Bebop sites created by devoted, intelligent, informed fans of the series, I'm not as fond of this fic as I was when I was writing it. I don't think it's a horrible story, writing-wise. My qualms have to do with Spike's characterization. In the first draft of this fic, there were some different and, to be truthful, disgustingly corny and OOC scenes featuring Spike, so I tried to rework those to keep him as in-character as possible. Did I succeed? What did you think? And what do you suppose Usagi whispered to Spike at the end there?

Keichan ^^V


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